Volcanoes

A volcano shapes a landscape of its own: regular cones, collapsed calderas, lava flows frozen in matt black. Running volcano trails means moving across ground that is young on the geological scale, often bare and mineral, where the slope suddenly steepens near the summit and the surface changes texture with every band of altitude. Here the relief tells a short story — barely a few tens of thousands of years, when the neighbouring ranges count in millions.

The Diagonale des Fous climbs to the Piton de la Fournaise, Réunion's active volcano. In the Canary Islands, Transgrancanaria and Transvulcania cross Gran Canaria and the black lava flows of La Palma. The Madeira Island Ultra Trail (MIUT) follows Madeira's volcanic levadas. The Ultra-Trail Mt. Fuji circles the most photographed cone in Japan. In Auvergne, the Chaîne des Puys offers its own relief of dormant volcanoes, gentler but just as recognisable.

These conical silhouettes and craters read particularly well as contour lines — the raw material of a Plotrek poster.